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In 2001, it was the site of the Tampa controversy, in which the Australian government stopped a Norwegian ship, MV Tampa, from allowing 438 rescued asylum seekers to disembark. The ensuing standoff and political fallout deeply damaged the standing of John Howard, the prime minister at the time, in the international community, but won him praise from some quarters at home.

Also in 2001, the island hit the headlines thanks to the "children overboard" affair, in which the government accused adult asylum seekers of throwing their children into the water in a protest at being turned away.

The claims were later proven to be false.

In 2005, the Howard government removed 4,600 islands, including Christmas Island, from the migration zone, preventing asylum seekers who land there from accessing Australian law and claiming asylum in Australia.

This allowed the Royal Australian Navy to relocate them to other countries (Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, and Nauru) as part of the so-called Pacific Solution.

In 2006 an Immigration Detention Centre, with room to house 2,000 asylum seekers, was constructed on the island for the Department of Immigration. Originally estimated to cost $210 million, the final cost was over $400 million.

Recently, there have been reports of overcrowding at the centre and of detainees being forced to live in tents.

Earlier this year detainees staged a protest over the conditions, sewing their lips together and refusing to eat.

Julia Gillard, who deposed Kevin Rudd in a political coup in June, has proposed a "regional solution" that involves sending asylum seekers to detention centres in East Timor She has also announced several new centres on the mainland, in an attempt to take the pressure off the Christmas Island facility, and bowed to pressure to release children and their families into the community.